Lawmakers: Congress must reclaim power from the White House

Two federal lawmakers — one Democrat, one Republican — want Congress to reclaim power it’s ceded to the White House.

But first, they acknowledge, lawmakers must negotiate an end to the federal government shutdown, now in its 10th day.

Reps. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska, and Jason Crow, a Democrat from Colorado — both military veterans who serve on the House Armed Services Committee together — made the remarks Friday during “Mapping the New Global Order,” a NOTUS event that also featured former senator and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

Both lawmakers agreed that it’s Congress’ responsibility to push back on President Donald Trump’s use of executive power, such as sending the National Guard to U.S. cities and enacting tariffs.

Hagel, a Republican, said the party has “essentially knelt” to Trump.

“You go to Congress first as an American, not as a Republican, not as a Democrat,” Hagel told Jasmine Wright, NOTUS’ White House correspondent.

Later, he said of the GOP, “They have failed on so much of this, and I hope they find some new courage.”

Bacon pointed to a similar issue: Lawmakers of one party are willing to hand over congressional powers to the president when the president is a member of their own party.

“I do think we have an issue where Congress has abdicated a lot of its authorities under Article 1” of the Constitution, Bacon told Daniella Diaz, congressional reporter with NOTUS. “It hasn’t just started with this president. I do think it’s escalated under this president.”

Crow stated multiple times that the United States is not in a “normal situation” regarding how powers are balanced.

“How in God’s name would someone expect us to send more money to this administration and give them a blank check, if in the last nine months all they have done is ignore Congress, ignore our authority, and spend money however they want to spend it?” he asked.

All three speakers had strong opinions on Trump’s new “Department of War,” including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s meeting with generals and admirals.

“I didn’t hear anything new,” Bacon said of the meeting. “This could’ve been easily done over email.”

Hagel agreed with Bacon while taking a shot at Trump’s renaming of the Department of Defense: “When people join the military it’s not to join a political party. You take an oath of office to, as Don Bacon says, to the Constitution — not to a president, not to a secretary of defense, not to a political party. It’s not the Department of War, it’s the Department of Defense.”

Many also mentioned Hegseth’s recent comments on members of the military’s weight and physical fitness.

“We focus on merit, we focus on substance, we focus on people getting the job done. Not displays of machismo,” said Crow.

Meanwhile, the government shutdown is all but assured to extend well into next week, at the least, with the U.S. Senate out of session until Tuesday. Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the House out of session while the Senate remains deadlocked, unable to muster 60 votes needed to advance a funding resolution. And now, military members who are furloughed or going without pay are staring down an Oct. 15 deadline for their next check.

“Every single year I’ve been in Congress there has been a bipartisan resolution to the appropriations bills,” said Crow, a congressman since 2019. “The first step to that is talking and negotiating and debating, which has to happen.”

When asked who bears the responsibility for the shutdown, Bacon said, “We gotta have a compromise the Democrats will vote for.”

But he also said that everything the Democrats are asking for, specifically tax credits related to the Affordable Care Act, could be solved in the appropriations bill.

“A big chunk of this is just anger at the president, but what are you gonna do? You can’t keep the government shut down for three years,” Bacon said.

Crow argued that following the reconciliation bill, the budget negotiations this time around do not represent a normal situation.

“What happened in July threatens to blow up the American healthcare system,” Crow said.

“The Republican Party today is so much a tool of whatever this Republican president, President Trump, wants and wants them to do,” said Hagel, who became a senator in 1997. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my time in Washington.”